Improvement in machin-ery for guiding and stretching fabrics



W. BIRCH. M 7 Machinery for Guiding and Stretching Fabrics.

No. 222,857. Patented Dec. 23,1879;

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UNITED STATES PATENTOFFIGE WILLIAM BIRCH, OF SALFORD, COUNTY OF LANCASTER, GREAT BRITAIN.

IMPROVEMENT IN MACHIN-ERY FOR GUIDING AND STRETCHING FABRICS.

Specification forming part of Letters Patent No. 222,857, dated December 23, 1879; applicationfiled July 23, 1878.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, WM. BIRCH, of Salford, county of Lancaster, Great Britain, have invented an Improvementin Machinery for Guiding and Stretching Fabrics, of which the following is a specification.

The objectof the invention is to make an improvement in the governor described in Patent No. 198,787, and to provide means for stretching fabrics in connection therewith, as herein after described. As before, I use a wellbalanced' frame pivoted in the central'line of the passing fabric. Instead, however, of using friction-bars only in the frame, I employ in conjunction with them rollers formed in any well-known way.

In the accompanying drawings, Figure 1 is an elevation, Fig. 2 a section, and Fig. 3 a plan, of the machine. I a

In my machine I employ both a guide, G, and a stretcher, S. The guide consists of two straight cylindrical rolls, R R, and a fixed friction-bar, B, arranged in a frame pivoted at P in the central plane of the passing fabric F. The cloth F being drawn in under one roller, over the friction-bar, and under the second roller, the rollers will be caused to rotate and keep the guide steadily at a right angle to the motion of the fabric as long as the latter is drawn centrally through the guide; but when the fabric passes to one side or the other the guide is drawn forward on that side, so that the guidemakes an acute angle with the selvage of the cloth on that side havingits point in front. The plane in which any point of either roller rotates, and which had been previously parallel with the motion of the cloth, forms now an angle with the latter, and the cloth being in contact with the rollers the rotation of the latter tends to draw it in the line of such rotation, which is now directed toward the vacated end and brings the cloth back to the center. 7

If a stretcher is desired, one ormore grooved bars may be bent in the center, so as to form two straight lines converging in a forward direction toward that of the cloth; or each bar may be out in two at the bend, thus forming a pair of bars, S S S S, supported at the ends, and which may be made movable.

What I claim as new and of my invention 1. The combination, with the main frame and the frame pivoted thereto, of two rolls, R R, and the fixed friction-bar B, as and for the purpose described.

2. The combination, with the main frame, the frame pivoted thereto, the rolls R R, and the friction bar B, carried by said second frame, of the stretching-bars S S, as shown and described.

WILLIAM BIRCH.

Witnesses:

G. WETTER, E. O. THOMPSON, Clerks to A. Hildebrandt, la tent Agent, 55 Cross Street, Manchester. 

